In Time For Mother’s Day Ben Harper And His Mother Ellen Release Childhood Home

May 9, 2014 - Happy almost Mother's Day! Today we are welcoming Ben Harper and his mother Ellen who have made an album together, Childhood Home just released this week in time for Mother’s Day. You know Ben. He has been making powerful blues influenced rock albums with The Innocent Criminals and others since 1992. His most recent album Get Up! with harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite won the 2014 Best Blues Album Grammy. Let me introduce his mother Ellen Harper. She has been singing and writing all her life. Her parents opened the Claremont Folk Music Center and Museum in California in 1958 and both Ellen and her son Ben practically grew up there. Ellen now manages the folk music Mecca. It’s a loving performance and conversation.

Session Setlist
A House Is A Home
Farmer's Daughter
Learn It All Again Tomorrow

Some may say that Get Up! is a new direction for Ben Harper, but it may actually be better labeled as a new beginning.

For the last few years, Ben Harper seems like an artist that’s been searching for new life with his musical ambitions. Since disbanding with the Innocent Criminals (their last album together was in 2007), Harper hasn’t skipped a beat in terms of productivity. Get Up! his latest album (Stax), a collaboration with blues-harmonica great Charlie Musselwhite, is Harper’s third album in 4 years. And while the demeanor of the album (essentially, it’s a blues record) may seem like the most drastic musical departure that we’ve heard from Ben, it actually underscores everything we’ve come to know about Ben over the last couple decades.

When you think back to the albums that Ben made with the Innocent Criminals, there was always something soulful, near spiritual with those albums. As he moved on to make two records with The Relentless 7, Ben chose to unleash a little more aggression and hone in on his rock sensibility. On Get Up! Ben strips back the angst, reclaims the soul and adds a touch of vulnerability to the equation. Challenges in his personal life including the end of his marriage seem to have fueled a new path of songwriting for Ben, and also a reintroduction to the blues. It’s not hard to hear the struggle on songs like “We Can’t End This Way” and the lament of losing a friend on “You Found Another Lover.” Rarely have we heard Ben as exposed in his songs as he is on Get Up!

While Get Up! certainly hones in on Ben personally and the vulnerability that often comes with the blues, it’s called Get Up for a reason. Let’s not forget, Charlie Musselwhite shares the marquee with Ben. His harmonica drives the bluesy stomp “I’m In I’m Out and I’m Gone.” The two burn it up on “Blood Side Out.” And that passion and power that Ben has captivated us with over the years turns almost Zeppelin-like on “I Don’t Believe a World You Say.” Some may say that Get Up! is a new direction for Ben Harper, but it may actually be better labeled as a new beginning.

On Lifeline, Ben Harper has gone back to his roots in a major way. Already the king of effortless groove, this album sounds like it was conceived, written and produced in a few weeks... which it was (the whole recording process took just a week, start to finish). That's a very good thing in this instance, because the spontaneity is absolutely refreshing. The songcraft on Lifeline rivals any other Harper release, and Ben and the Innocent Crimminals play the tunes with an uplifting sense of discovery.

There's so many solid tunes on here, I don't really know where to start. The lead single "In The Colors" sounds better with every listen, and others like "Put It On Me," "Fight Outta You," "Younger Than Today," "Needed You Tonight" - and at least a couple more songs on Lifeline - stack up with anything Harper has ever done.

In this day of single releases and single song downloading capabilities, here's an album that you'll want to hear start to finish.

There's also no reason to believe that these tunes won't sound fantastic live, given their organic feel. It's a bonafide best-of contender for '07, and could become a career album from a guy who's already forged an impressive one.